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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

This has been our first official summer back home in Kansas and it's turning out to be the best summer! It's been chalk full of family, friends and fun times. But what really makes it the best summer is... friends moving back to Kansas too!!! How sweet is it that we move back last August and now we have five friends that are now moving home. God is so good!

This here beautiful lady is Victoria. Ryan & I meet her in college. Ryan met her through Mortar Board, and I meet her through a campus ministry. This girl is so ridiculously talented at everything she does and after college moved to Virgina for an awesome teaching opportunity. Now she is coming home and we couldn't be more excited to be around her energetic personality just in time for K-State football season!

(Can't wait for you to whip out the purple shoes Victoria!)

Our good friends Kenneth & Melinda are moving home this summer from Los Angeles now that Ken graduated with his MBA. Ken was one of Ryan's fraternity brothers back in college and have been in each other's weddings. They are already under contract on a house pretty close to us and we can't wait to hangout all the time. :)

(Great ready for a lot of Ryan & Lindsey time Ken & Melinda!)

We are ecstatic to announce that our besties Brad & Lindsey are also moving home from Houston!!! We can't believe our good fortune. Kansas City has definitely been lacking without these two and we can't wait until they are here. In fact, they will most likely be living with us for awhile until they find a house. It will be a party 24/7. :)

(Can't wait to start our Canasta marathon with you guys!)

I am seriously just over the moon with excitement with all our friends moving back. Life is good.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Ok, I know that I promised awhile ago that I would post pictures of our new house, and obviously that hasn't happened. We've been working away at it, but I haven't posted because I felt like none of the rooms were still finished. I have now come to the realization that the house will never be "finished". So I've decided to start posting what I like to call "before and in progress" pictures.

The easiest to start off with would be our driveway since I already posted about our roof here. We had negotiated to have the driveway redone before we closed but didn't have the work done until after we moved in.

It was in bad shape.

Now it's so new!! I feel like it's really made a difference to the appearance of the home.

Our next really big project is our siding... I am so not looking forward to that and we are trying to hold off as long as possible. Unfortunately, it's in need of repair or replacement. I was hoping we wouldn't need to do anything with it until next year but it may have to happen sooner. Boo.

Next up on this little home tour series will be the half bathroom. I know random, but my in-laws did something really fun with it. Stay tuned.

Friday, June 24, 2011

The girls had a great turn out last night at their premiere party held in their mom's reality office. There were so many people that most people had to stand! This is a terrible picture and doesn't show most of the group, but you get the idea.

We were able to watch the show blown up on that big white screen. This picture of Lindsey cracks me up! Lindsey, Kelsey & Mackenzie all gave a short speech about the show before it started. Linds talked about how she was randomly on ABC's website and saw a link for casting. She was curious so she clicked on it to see what they were casting for. All she did was submit a little email and a picture of the three of them and they called her that week! Then they asked for a short video of the three of them and then flew them out to LA for the final casting!! It all happened so fast!

During commercial breaks the girls stood up to tell us what really happened that the producers cut out. It's so interesting to hear about all the behind the scenes. They cut out so much stuff!! Apparently, that sand dune at the beginning of the episode took everyone about 4 hours to climb but they showed it in like 12 minutes. Ha! Also, what they showed as "one day" of racing was actually two separate days.

I am so proud of these girls. They came in fourth place that day!! Right behind the gypsies, the fab three and the foot ball players. They were the first all girl team to finish too! I can't wait for the rest of the shows to air now!

Me, Lindsey & Ryan

We wore our Team Kansas shirts to represent. They are actually a little different from the design I posted yesterday, and they turned out even cuter! I will have to get a pic of the back of the shirt too hopefully next week.

Linds, I'm so happy you were able to come into town for the premiere! You would have been sorely missed. Love you!!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

*Get ready for a massive amount of pictures because that's just what I do*

This past weekend our good friends (and old roomies) invited us to the Lake of the Ozarks along with another couple. We all used to work together in Bartlesville, OK before we all started getting moved by the company. In B'ville you get pretty close to people since it's a relatively small town. We like to try to still get together when we can.

Nathan's dad has a condo on the lake that we were able to crash. It was perfect for our size of group and a beautiful spot on the lake.

We got there Friday night in time for dinner at a fun place on the lake. It had several different levels to it. It had a place to eat, a place for bands to play and even a foam party room! Ha! I've never seen one in person before that night. See below. :)

The 80's cover band. They were good!

Jordan & Emily breaking it down on the dance floor.

Jordan & Ryan discovering the foam room by themselves.

Hilarious!

The foam party was dead until Ryan & Jordan showed up and then everyone thought they'd join in too! Seriously, one of the funniest things I've seen in awhile!

On Saturday Janet made us all homemade cinnamon rolls that melted in your mouth. She is the best! Once we had sufficiently lounged around for the morning, we decided to rent a boat so we could get some water time in.

Such a fun group of people! Where's Emily in this shot??

Nathan, Janet, Ryan & Jordan

The lake was not crowded at all so the waves were not very choppy. Even though Ryan liked to think they were.

The girls sat up front to get as much sun as possible even though it was a pretty cloudy morning.

Janet, Emily & I

The boys took turns manning the boat.

This picture cracks me up!

After a little bit of boating we found a nice cove to anchor while we ate our packed lunches and then decided to jump into the lake. It was actually really warm water!

The boys had fun throwing a ball at people while they were jumping into the lake.

Side note, Jordan doesn't normally make this face on a regular basis. He actually has Bells Palsy that causes a temporary paralysis of half the face. So random! He's already starting to get some movement back but of course Jordan is having fun with it. Only he would make jokes of his own face!

Janet's a freaking champ!

Emily gracefully gets in the water. She wasn't havin' it with the boys throwing balls at everybody. I wasn't either. Ha!

There was a big group of little baby ducklings with their mama that kept swimming by us. We finally got back on the boat to throw some bread at them. This was them flying across the water trying to get the pieces of food.

Later we decided to hit up the pool since the sun finally decided to grace us with it's presence. I didn't get any pictures of the pool but it was so beautiful! It jutted out over the lake. After a little snooze in the sun, we all wanted to play a little put-put golf. We had seen a really neat looking one near the condo we wanted to try out.

Jordan & Emily

We had a little competition going against couples versus couples. Let's just say the Ebright's totally dominated!

Janet & Nathan

Ryan & I

We had so much fun together!

The weekend was entirely too short and I was wishing we could have spent the whole week there together. Jordan & Emily will be moving from B'ville to Houston next month so they won't be as close to hangout with! We are so bummed but at least we were able to have this fun weekend together as a little send off. We all decided we needed to do something like this every year. So until next year!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

A few weeks ago our small group said goodbye to our friends Jeff & Carrie. I'm really going to miss their presence in our group. They added so much! It's hard to see good people leave but we all know they are going to love their new adventure. Jeff will be in residency and Carrie took a new job in health management in Indiana. We are crossing our fingers they will move back to KC once Jeff is done with residency!

(snagged this picture from their facebook page)

Our pod group threw them a little going away chin dig but unfortunately they couldn't make it. Ha! Oh well, more cake for us. ;)

Kara brought root beer floats. They are a summer time must!

Kara was a little excited for her first float of the season.

We are missing a lot of our small group in this picture. It's so hard to get everyone together at once!